


last the year.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e21 Reading is Fundamental, M/M, Rufus's Cabin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2289227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat





	last the year.

I.

It is still summer when you leave him behind.  

You leave him behind in the small splintering cabin resting at the foot of a mountain, you leave him with chains and guns and extra rounds in the basement, with the same ragged white curtains on the windows.  You leave him with stacked cans of beans and vegetables in the cabinets, you leave him with smoked ham and venison hanging from the rafters and a dresser drawer filled with your old flannel shirts.  

He watches you leave.  You drive slowly down the dirt road and you watch him in the rear view mirror as gravel flies up into your windshield, as dust settles along the sleek black sides of your car.  You see his dark head, a flash in the window.  You leave him with hollow eyes and hands pressing against his face, a faded echo of everything that he used to be.

You send him postcards. You send him letters from Texas, from Tulsa, from Omaha, you write him letters that don’t say _I miss you_  but that say everything else, letters that talk of everything that came before. You write of the night you opened your eyes to see him standing over you in the shadows, the night you turned away and said  _I just can’t_.  You write to him. You ask him,  _Why did I do that? Why did you do what you did? How can we ever be what we used to be, huh? You got an answer for that?_  you ask him, but he never writes back.

II.

When you return, it’s already fall, and he is there, still wearing the shirts that you left him, tucked inside those dresser drawers.  You let out a breath you hadn’t know you were holding: he’s still there; you drove for hours with your fingers drumming on the steering wheel.  You had closed that door and locked it and sometimes you thought that if you came back and opened it all over again, he wouldn’t be there.  For nights and nights you dreamed of coming back to find an empty house, covered in dust, with broken windows and blood on the floor.

But he is there.  He meets you at the door.  You don’t kiss him when you peel him out of your shirt, you don’t kiss him when you pull the jeans down his thighs or when you stroke his skin with your tongue, not when you lick at the crease of his hip or when you slide your mouth down his throat.

I don’t want to fight, he whispers. You swallow a cry. You whisper in his ear, Me either.

You hold him in your arms and you look out the windows, you stare through the sheer white curtains, you watch the way they move gently in the window. At the dark red blood marking the dirty glass of the window.

You’re safe here, you tell him. You hear me, Cas?  

You can be safe here.

III.

You come back to the cabin in the deep heart of winter, when the world outside is silent and still and white.  Snow falls and settles around the old wood of the cabin, around the cold metal of your car.  Castiel ties branches of fir and spruce over the doorways, drapes it over the fireplace mantel, and when you lay your head against his neck you can smell his skin, you can smell the heavy smell of wood smoke clinging to his hair.  You gather him to your chest when you greet him and press him against the cool stones of the fireplace. 

You drag a quilt over his body and yours and together you sleep on the mattress in front of the stone fireplace and you hold him there.   With your arms around him, with your hands between his head and the sheets, you push into him and he opens his mouth but no noise comes out. You hold him, and he wraps his arms around your neck and he holds you back.  He holds onto you.  His cock is leaking between your bellies; when you roll your hips into him slowly you can feel that soft skin sliding up and down your stomach.

I won’t come back, you tell him. I won’t come back ever again. You hear me, Castiel?  You try to shake him, you try to warm him with your words but you are trying to move a snow-topped mountain with just the force of your quiet breath.  But he turns his eyes away and when he comes, it’s with his face pressed close into your neck.

You spend those winter nights trying to keep him warm, but no matter how close you hold him or the the hot breath you breathe on his skin, he stays cold as snow falling from the clouds.

You picture staying, picture long nights in front of the fireplace. He will grow a beard, and you will too. His fingers will drift over over your chin and he will smile.

Sometimes you feel some of his grace spill out into you. It touches you and feels like ice.  You wonder if your love helps at all, if it is enough to keep him alive through the winter.

Come back, I need you, you whisper in his ear. You make him promises. You swear, If you can make it this long, just a little longer.  Please, you say, but when the snow is dripping from the trees and the ice is melting into the ground you leave him lying there in the blankets.Don’t forget, you say. Don’t forget that I...but you can’t say it, whatever it was that you meant to tell him.  

I won’t, Castiel says.  You remember enough for the both of you.  He will.  

IV.

He kisses in his sleep, every early grey spring morning, his mouth falling open slowly and moving against the rough stubble on your neck.  You wrap your arms round his neck, tuck your hands against his chest.  You bring your arms around him, you leave them still and heavy on his chest.  You rub your thumb over his nipple, let your hand slip down to stroke his belly, and when you slide inside him, you push in slow and stay still.  Let me in, you, though he has, he has; he opened the door and stepped back, he said your name in welcome.   You bring your fingers around his cock, slip your fingers down the base and up again.  Let me in, you whisper.

There’s a place, he says later, where I can be at peace.

Take me, you say, and he takes your hand.  He leads you to a meadow surrounded with red cedar, white pine, mountain hemlock; with blue spruce and juniper creeping along the ground.  

You ask him, What you do here?

He says, I remember.

You push him down and hold him against the clover and he smells like pine trees and tastes like beer.  You run your fingers over his cheek until he turns his face, until you can reach his mouth, but you don’t kiss him.  You keep your hand there, flat as a river stone, heavy and warm as afternoon sun on the rocks by the creek.  You press your forehead against his.

I’m happy here, he says.  

There’s no one else, you think.  No one will love him if I don’t, if i’m not here.  

You say, Then I’ll stay with you.

V.

You are there for the summer, when the wooden boards on the insides of the windowsills have small round holes where carpenter bees have been boring bore inside. They are swarming underneath the wood, underneath the walls.  You listen to the humming and rumbling from the bees.  The meadow outside is haunted by them.  You can see the shadow of tree limbs and leaves outlined though the moth-eaten curtains.  You lie in the path of the sunlight, Castiel’s bare feet touching your calves.  

You bring your arms around him, you leave them still and heavy on his chest.  You touch his skin until Castiel makes a noise deep inside his throat that reminds you of the bees.

Then you are still.  You lie chest to chest, you are so close that you can feel the air from your lungs echoed back to you.  Castiel is running his hands over your arms, bringing them around to stroke your back and dipping down below the curve of your waist.  He is bringing his hands back up, curling his fingers where your neck meets your collarbone. You grasp his shoulders, brown and warm, you hold onto those strong summer arms licked by the sun.   You say, I think I love you.  Is it enough?

Castiel looks at you.  Sometimes you think he is in love. Sometimes you think you can see it in his eyes, soft and dark as heartwood, sometimes you imagine love in the way he smiles at you.  He is stroking the sides of your face, he is covering your mouth with his own.  Enough for me, he says, and he bows his head.


End file.
